


Dark Rose and Fiery Bays

by oubliance



Category: A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel
Genre: Other, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 19:53:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oubliance/pseuds/oubliance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Germinal happened in fragments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Rose and Fiery Bays

**Author's Note:**

> Sections five and six are emergent from private discussions with the lovely madamedarque.
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://www.tracemyip.org/)  
> 

_White, O white face—_  
 _from disenchanted days_  
 _wither alike dark rose_  
 _and fiery bays:_  
 _no gift within our hands,_  
 _nor strength to praise,_  
 _only defeat and silence …_

– from ‘Prayer’ by H. D.

 

 

‘That was clever,’ the officer says. ‘What you said … You know, sans-culotte Jesus, that.’

This one needs bucking-up, or he might not last the trial. And it’s kind, isn’t it – to have a bit of a joke with them? He squeezes the shaking arm. ‘I’ve got you,’ he says. ‘Don’t you worry.’

Camille watches the back of Danton’s grand skull, moving ahead of him. Danton needs no assistance. Has he ever needed help? Camille wonders. All those speeches written out, never used: Camille has spent a fortune on pens, ink, paper.

Conspiratorially – no, perhaps not that word, it has fallen out of use. Quietly, the officer adds, ‘It won’t be so bad, the second time.’

– Which is a lie. There are no good interrogations, but you say whatever keeps them on their feet. This little citizen is faltering, and they’ve scarcely begun: sometimes the trials go on for days, you get to know your charges well. Their children, their foibles, their mad anxieties, their chilblains in winter.

 

*

 

The blanket is thin. He’s cold without Danton, but Danton is still working.

From far away, the pen scratches; a chorus woven from men’s breath rises, falls, continues without ceasing. Where is he now? Things have changed, and the shadows swim bleakly before Camille’s eyes when he opens them.

Where is he? Except for Georges-Jacques, all the wrong people are here.

– Lucile is lighting the candles, coming to the bedside, stooping over him, and in the soft brightness of the room her eyes shine while she blesses his forehead with her hand, cool as water. ‘I’ll bring you something to drink,’ she says. ‘Lie still, Camille.’

The doctor raps at their door.

‘Lie still, Camille,’ he says.

 

*

 

Camille’s heart stages an insurrection; his blood marches with pikes in its hands, chanting and shouting.  He hears, in the next room, his small son’s uplifted voice. And surely the trill of the piano interrupts, as it always does, as it has done a thousand times?

‘Camille,’ Horace chirps, ‘Camille.’

Horace’s mother is hushing him: ‘He’ll be back soon,’ she says. Her voice is prayerful, made of silver.

His heart begins to stammer – as if it has rescued Horace, in advance, from the disability of his unlucky father.

 

*

 

‘He’s falling asleep,’ says Lacroix, that kind man.

‘No.’

It’s Danton’s voice, and it is Danton sitting down beside him, the bed dipping miserably.

‘Lucile said,’ he whispers. ‘Lucile said she was bringing – ’

‘Hush, now,’ Danton says. His voice is stern.

– Camille thinks of screaming, but instead he puts his fingers into his mouth.

 

*

 

Hérault says, ‘You’ll feel better. Everyone at the Luxembourg … ’

At the Luxembourg, Camille was alone. He gazed down at Annette in her heavy veil; he wrote several letters. On the far side of the wall a man coughed, and coughed.

Fabre said, ‘It will be all right; Robespierre – you – ’

Now Camille looks at Hérault in the dimness, and he can hardly keep awake. His voice, at its lowest ebb, won’t obey him.

‘I want my mother,’ he whispers, not bothering to wipe his eyes. ‘Hérault. My mother died. She died, then my father wrote to me. That’s how it began.’

 

*

 

Hérault says, ‘You’ll feel better.’ He begins to stroke Camille’s dry and burning hand.

Danton’s pen scratches and scratches, but Camille is too tired to write any more letters now.

‘Not – ’ he begins, thinking of blood, how much he’s bled.

‘Oh, no,’ Hérault says. ‘No, of course. Lie still, my dear.’

Danton’s pen keeps scratching: as if he’s writing the Old Cordelier, finishing it for Camille, because he loves him.

 

*

 

The cup bumps his teeth.

‘Drink this, sip it.’

Danton’s hand is curling under his head like a nursemaid’s. Camille shivers violently and the water spills, christens his flaking lips.

‘Drink it,’ Danton says.

Camille swallows. ‘Are they going to – Do you think they really will?’

‘I’m going to speak again, you know that. Make them listen. Make everyone. Here – come here, now.’

‘Fabre’s dying.’

Danton touches the tangled head that leans on his breast. The touch is improbably tentative: as though this were not Camille, fitting as well as he always has, but some other man.

 

*

 

‘Yes,’ Danton says, stroking Camille’s hair. And you are, he thinks. Even if I – and I won’t, but even if I got us off; you are dying, aren’t you? I didn’t see in time that Gabrielle –

‘I’m going to speak,’ he whispers. ‘I’ve worked it out. Don’t worry too much.’

Camille knows he could say: you are lying. He could say, please, Georges, tell me the truth. He’s very thirsty, and he swallows more water from Danton’s cup when it is offered to him. Georges, he thinks, tell me the truth – or don’t, perhaps I can’t –

– He is shivering; Danton’s shirt feels soft against his cheek.

 

*

 

How badly Camille’s eyes are smarting, as if terror could kindle involuntary fires. He closes them and stumbles.

‘Careful,’ the officer says. ‘What’s up?’

‘My eyes hurt,’ Camille whispers.

– Camille has been falling for days; a man’s arm won’t save him. Only his thin hands cling on. The officer looking down at them recalls, with something close to agony, his twelve-year-old daughter in the last week of her life. Wasted, plucking at the blanket that covered her chest where the breath came and went more and more roughly: then went for good.

He says, ‘I’ve got you safe, lad. Nearly there.’

 

*

 

In the recess, water is given by the humane Republic. Camille sinks down onto cold, dirty stone: he cannot hold a glass, not today.

The others drink. Danton will only speak in a whisper, he must save his voice. Time passes, seconds or minutes, and Camille listens to his skipping, swimming heart, which is readily audible.

Hérault says, ‘Have some water, Camille. Here you are, swallow this.’ He thinks Camille looks like Fabre – disconcertingly like Fabre, who hasn’t left his armchair, apparently having no further desire to drink, or even to piss. Fabre, Hérault thinks, has left them already, though his heart still beats and a witticism drifts occasionally from his half-open mouth. His death will be a formality, yet nobody could say the same of Camille, ill as he looks –

– Camille folds at the waist, retching. Water splashes on the floor between them, a tinge of bile, nothing else.

 

*

 

Until they are summoned back, Hérault strokes his trembling shoulders. Formerly he would have chosen another fashion of consolation, but he does not like the texture of Citizen Camille’s hair so much as he did.

Camille’s in a fever: it sheens his skin so that he appears unearthly. The silk curls are cloyed with sweat and his eyes look brilliant. Hérault’s hand is Annette’s hand; Camille is lying on the calamitous chaise-longue, in tears, because his mother is dead. The velvet under his body is hardening. He thinks, I must write some more, my defence must be longer. I will go down like Orpheus and find her, bring her back.

Somebody has set a lighted taper to his thighs, hips, coccyx. The maenads are absent. Camille thinks, I must have chosen to burn, and forgotten my choice –

‘It’s time,’ Hérault says, lifting him onto his feet.

While speaking, Danton refuses to look at Camille: he fears that he will lose his train of thought, fall silent and never open his mouth again.

 

*

 

The sun isn’t yet up, and they’re alone in a room full of restless sleepers. Danton’s handkerchief is limp with water. Camille flinches as it renews the soreness of his skin.

‘That can’t hurt,’ Danton whispers. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘It hurts – ’ 

– Camille has been rendered more salubrious. He begins to weep.

Danton covers him up with a dressing-gown: finds his ink-stained hand, holds it tightly. Time melts between their palms, cleaner than Camille and vanishing even faster.

 

*

 

The sky is full of pink light. The crowd suddenly hushes itself. Camille thinks he will turn to look at them, but a man’s hand checks him.

‘Lie still,’ he says, touching Camille’s wet ear, wet cheekbone. ‘Don’t fret. Lie still.’

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't sure whether to post this here, or as RPF - the characterisations are influenced by Mantel, but it's also, I realise, very un-Mantel in certain respects, and diverges explicitly from _A Place of Greater Safety_. In the end, I felt it was too downbeat for the RPF section - but my apologies if the uncanonical choices here spoilt it for anyone. Despite the obliquity, there is a concrete rationale for everything that happens in this story. Even to say this next thing probably means the piece, as art, fails; nevertheless: send me a message if you need an explanation.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  \- And as ever, as always: _requiescant in pace._


End file.
